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Talk:Warp drive/archive
Canon This is good (and much) work, but several details sound "invented". These parts should be removed. -- Cid Highwind 04:06, 3 Apr 2004 (PST) Cid, I tried to stay as close to canon as I could on this one. Most of the details in the technology section are drawn from the TNG Technical Manual. The history section is almost completely canon, with some conjecture on my part based on the canonical sources. The specific parts I speculated on were Cochrane's original Phoenix being fusion-powered and his move to Alpha Centauri being partially motivated by trying to integrate warp engines with matter-antimatter reactors. (The former I felt pretty safe with, 'cause Cochrane and his team are inoculated for radiation exposure in First Contact, and I was hoping they weren't playing around with a fission pile.) Another part was the date of the refactoring of the Warp scale- I saw someone somewhere had a date of 2313 which jibed well with the refitted big E being capable of warp 12 and the TOS E achieving warp 14.1, but the TNG E only capable of warp 9.6. I also took the liberty of tying this refactoring in with the failed transwarp program of Excelsior. The part about the warp scale being a piecewise function was an idea I got when researching formulae for computing "new" warp speeds, when in actuality the scale is just a pretty picture drawn by Okuda, who never even took Calculus. (The slacker!) I also speculated on why they built the Constellation with four nacelles when Roddenberry dictated all ships have only two. (The date of 2269 for two warp nacelles being optimal is from TNG TM, pp. 65, and I was also trying to see if ther was a way I could re-inject Franz Joseph's starship designs from the original TM into canon- I have a real soft spot for them.;-)) The time frame of their construction being in the 2290's was also my conjecture based on the fact that the ships are seventy-odd years old by the time of TNG and DS9. The last really big leap on my part was figuring out why in the last season of TNG they set the speed limit at warp five, but just a few months and movies later everone's back gallivanting at warp nine. (I know the real reason was because of lazy writing, but I'm trying to sound credible here.) I really tried to do my homework on this article, and if there are specific points you have issue with, let me know and I'll rewrite 'em. Thanks! --Chuckhoffmann 00:37, 4 Apr 2004 (PST) :Thanks for explaining all those points, Chuck. It's not that I don't agree with them, I just think that anything that is not directly "canon", even if it seems to be completely logical, should be marked as such. Otherwise, a visitor might assume that this conjecture is indeed canon for some reason. The style we often use for speculation is an indented and italicized paragraph, which you can achieve this way: ::SPECULATION HERE :I suggest that you separate facts from 'reasonable' conjecture this way in the article (pure speculation should probably still be removed) and add a short explanation why you came to those conclusions (like you did on this talk page). This also includes TNGTM info - I think we haven't yet decided whether this info should be included or not. -- Cid Highwind 01:19, 4 Apr 2004 (PST) Canon vs. conjecture I noticed that this article was changed to include some explanations for the existing conjecture. This is better than just offering the speculation "as canon", of course, but I still think that there might be better ways... Some examples: :ARTICLE: Cochrane's original warp engines were fusion-powered1 :EXPLANATION: 1. The idea that Cochrane's original Phoenix was fusion-powered is my speculation based on the fact that in First Contact, Cochrane and his team are inoculated for radiation exposure after the Borg attack and I was hoping they weren't playing around with a fission pile. Speculation based on canon facts. That's good, in my opinion. Could be rephrased a little, then integrated into the main text (but still marked as speculation, of course). :ARTICLE: In 2269, research was done that showed that the optimum number of warp nacelles for a starship is two, although warp nacelles in pairs can generate greater speeds and longer durations at a loss of efficiency. (This research of using four nacelles eventually led to the creation of the Constellation class starships in the 2290's.4) :EXPLANATION: 4. While developing Star Trek: The Next Generation, Gene Roddenberry decided that all starships should have 2 warp nacelles, so I had to come up with a convincing explanation of why a lot of starships have 1, 3 or 4 nacelles. Another, more selfish reason is that I'm trying to re-integrate the Franz Joseph Schnaubelt-designed starships back into canon. The date of 2290 as the date for the building of the Constellation class is based on the ships being about 70 years old at the time of TNG. Roddenberry's decision is not canon, and we saw at least some ships with 1 or 4 nacelles, so no explanation is necessary. That bit can simply be deleted from the article. GR's decision might make a nice anecdote (footnote) on some page, though (if it is indeed valid, some people seem to doubt even that)... :ARTICLE: The warp scale (...) was refactored in 2313.6 :EXPLANATION: 6. I saw someone somewhere had a date of 2313 for the refactoring of the Warp scale This is basically some number picked randomly just to have a number. A less specific reference, or none at all, would be just as good in this case. There are some other ideas I have, but this should be enough for the moment. If you think these need some discussion, just let me know. Otherwise, someone can just incorporate those changes... (I will do tomorrow if there are no objections) -- Cid Highwind 19:08, 22 Apr 2004 (CEST) :Not exactly "tomorrow" (which would have been a little too fast, anyway), but I just incorporated those changes because there were no objections. I also moved the remaining footnotes to the relevant sections to allow easier editing in the future. Let's talk about some of those other bits: -- Cid Highwind 17:32, 28 Apr 2004 (CEST) History - 21st century *The history of the first unmanned test vessel sounds like TNGTM-info (see: canon). It should be removed if that's the only source. *Footnote 1 and the related part of the article is speculation and should be removed(?). Is the relocation to Alpha Centauri canon (then cite a source) or speculation based on "Zefram Cochrane of Alpha Centauri" (then add this as a comment)? Images This article still needs a lot of images. Of the top of my head, I'd say Constitution at warp, slistream, different types of warp-cores, intrepid with nacelles in different position for comparison, but there's lot's more to be added. -- Redge | ''Talk'' 17:27, 13 Aug 2004 (CEST)